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ADDRESS 



AT THE FUNERAL OF 



COL. GEORGE DUNCAN WELLS, 



OCTOBER Jai, 18G-4, 



UNITARIAN CHURCH, GREENFIELD, 



BY REV. JOHN F. MOORS. 



Printed, for Ir»rivate Circulation. 



BOSTON: 

ALFRED MUDGE & SON, rRINTEKS, 34 SCHOOL STREET. 

1864. 






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ADDRESS. 



What can we do for our country ? What have 
we that we can give her ? She is our mother. 
We owe her much. She has nourished and brought 
us up. She has given us shelter and protection. 
While holding the reins of a lawful and proper 
restraint, she has given us a large and generous 
liberty. She has been a kind, indulgent mother. 
She has given freely, and asked but little in 
return. But trouble has come upon her. Her 
ungi'ateful children have rebelled against her, have 
cast off her authority, have spurned her claims to 
honor and respect ; and, as the result, there is 
war — there is wailing and sorrow in the land. 

What can we do for our country ? What give 
to her ? It is the question which presses upon 
us now every hour. It absorbs and swallows up 
all other questions. All other interests are selfish 
and tame beside this. One has hardly a right 



to press any other question home to his conscience 
than this ; this he should not fail to press home 
with all the earnestness of his being. 

■ What shall we give our country ? Shall we 
give anything ? Or shall we stand idly by with 
folded hands, and say, — "This is no concern of 
mine, " — while the greatest struggle in which 
humanity has ever been engaged is going on ? 
Shall we do anything, or shall we join with those 
who seek her ruin ? Shall we give complaints 
and faultfindings and despair ? Shall we laugh 
at her misfortunes, and glory in her disasters ? 
Poor gifts these to render, where so much is 
due. 

What shall we give our country ? In calmer 
times than these, when the white-robed angel of 
Peace was hovering over us, I would have said, — 
give generous and noble manhood and womanhood. 
Good men make good citizens. They serve the 
state who quicken in themselves and others that 
divine sense which compels us to make a con- 
science of all things. It is when young men and 
maidens have high and heroic aims, when God is 
loved and worshipped, that the state is prosperous. 



Ill calmer days than tliis I would appeal to you 
to give to your country tlic unobserved but efficient 
service of pure and holy lives. But the hour 
demands another answer. What shall we give to 
our country ? We owe her our best, — the best 
of mind and heart, — our highest and freest 
thouglits, our most unselfish aspirations, the strug- 
gle of our inmost spirit in prayer to God for 
his blessing. We owe to her our heartiest sym- 
pathy and cooperation ; we owe it to her to put 
forth all the power there is within us to make 
the institutions and laws and enterprises of the 
state at one with the Divine will, as revealed in 
the gospel of Christ. We should not carry our 
politics into religion, but we should put our reli- 
gion deeply and earnestly into our politics ; we 
should carry them up to God, and do what we 
can to make this world the kingdom of our Lord 
Jesus Christ. We can give no less. 

But what shall we give our country? Ask the 
living soul which a few days ago animated the now 
lifeless form of the friend before us, — ask him what 
shall be given, and the reply comes cheerfully, man- 
fully, — '- Give the best you have to give, give all 
1* 



6 



you liavc to give. " So lie said, practically, when lie 
went forth to this service. He knew what he 
undertook. He was no stranger to the contest 
which prepared the way for the deadly strife of 
arms. It had been the study of his life. He 
had seen and read the signs of the coming storm 
when the sky was apparently clear. He saw at the 
outset what was at stake, — that everything that 
was dear and valuable in human life and in human 
society on these shores was at stake. When the call 
first came, — What will you give to your country ? — 
he at once, with the generosity of a noble nature, 
and with the unselfish enthusiasm of patriotism, 
replied, — I give myself, my all. He would have 
said it, could he have foreseen the honorable name 
he was to win for himself; and he would have said 
it none the less if he could have foreseen that ere 
the conflict was over he should be counted among 
the un returning brave who have wet the soil with 
their l)lood. He would have said the same just as 
promptly and cheerfully if he could have read tli^ 
record of the future up to this return to the old 
familiar scenes, — to this temple where in youth he 
worshipped, to the troops of friends avIio loved liini 



so well, and to the cemetery on the hill in which 
he took so deep an interest. He gave his all. He 
saw in this contest more than a strife of parties for 
place and favor. He saw the highest human inter- 
ests of a great people in conflict with the selfish 
interests of a despotic class. He saw that the 
contest was inevitable. Events had, for years, been 
preparing the way for it. He saw the guiding hand 
of God, who has always led men up to higher 
planes of living, to nobler thoughts and aspirations, 
tlu'ough conflict and strife. "Without shedding of 
blood is no remission." The Cross is the consecrated 
symbol of the world's redemption; no cross, no 
crown. 

The crisis-hour had come; the contest had raged 
long ; words failed to reach the mark. Political com- 
binations to maintain peace failed. Room was left 
only for the stern mediation ot war. The hour had 
come, and men were wanted who felt and understood 
the crisis; and George Duncan Wells stood forward 
among the first and foremost to meet the occasion. 
He gave his all. And he had much to give. He had 
youth, and talent, and culture ; he had hosts of friends 
and endeared relatives who leaned upon him ; he had 



8 



bright prospects of an honorable career in his chosen 
profession. He has given them all, and who shall say 
that they have been given in vain ? Who shall venture 
to commiserate him to-day? Might he not rather 
commiserate some of us ? Who shall pity him for 
these three years of privation and exposure? Devo- 
tion in a worthy enterprise, as the history of all 
martyrdom shows, exalts men, so that they smile at 
hardship, and privation, and danger. And what think 
they of life ? They throw that in. We do not un- 
derstand the patriot soldier, if we deal out our pity 
at his hardships and privations. By his heroic devo- 
tion he grows in manliness. Has he lost limb or 
life, he has gained nobleness of soul. We do not 
commiserate him; we rather rejoice that he had so 
much to give to his country, and gave it so cheer- 
fully. We mourn our own loss. We claimed him 
as one of ourselves. We watched with interest 
every step in his honorable career, and felt that 
somewhat of his glory Avas reflected back to the place 
of his birth and the friends of his childhood and 
youth. We mourn that his country, for whicli he 
had sacrificed so much, nuist lose, from a high i)lace 



of trust and responsibility^ one so able and faithful 
as lie has always proved. 

He has given his all to his country, and in this 
giving has enriched himself. The wealth of a man's 
heart consists in its power of giving. He that makes 
the largest sacrifices is the richest. It makes the giver 
opulent with spiritual power. He claims and receives 
to-day our respect and admiration for what he has 
given, and in a thousand fold greater degree than he 
could claim, or would receive, had he remained at 
home, and grown rich at the expense of the country. 

The heroic grandeur of these times, which we but 
faintly appreciate, because we live too near to see it 
in its true proportions, — the heroic grandeur of 
these times consists in this generous, unselfish giving. 
The mother gives her only son, in anguish of heart 
indeed, but gives him as an offering upon God's altar. 
The maiden gives her lover, the wife her husband. 
The young men, whose spring-time is just putting 
forth the fresh blossoms of hope, the strong men, 
bearing their full share of life's labors and burdens, 
give all as our friend has given. Talk of taxes and 
an impoverished country, — the country never was so 
rich in spiritual possessions as now. Never had it 



10 



such self-denial, never such heroic manliness, never 
such noble self-forgetfulness, never such hallowed 
memorials. As a people, we have grown mature. 
We are furnishing themes for bard and epic as 
grand as ever Homer or Milton had. 

Heretofore we have travelled to foreign lands to 
gaze upon sacred memorials of past heroism and 
self-sacrifice, now we find them on every side. 
Almost every home has some sacred relic that tells 
its touching story of bravery and daring, or of hard- 
ship and suffering. The Shenandoah and the Chick- 
ahominy, the James and the Appomattox, have all 
become classic streams to us. And all through the 
land, from the Potomac to the Gulf, there are the 
little unmarked mounds where repose the unreturning 
brave, for whom no burial was prepared, save such 
rude Ijurial as the soldier can render his conu-ade. 
Every village burial place has its record of the 
devastation of the war. And when the fitting time 
shall come, — let it be at the end of the war, which 
God in his mercy grant may be near — let each 
town erect a fitting and lasting memorial to those of 
its brave sons who have met a soldier's death. 
And let us not be behind; but in a place which 



11 



shall be a shrine at which patriotism shall be nour- 
ished, let us erect a monument which sliall bear the 
names of our honored dead, — Captain Day and 
Major Walker; not forgetting those who had no offi- 
cial position, — Burnham, a noble, high-minded boy, 
who has recently fallen, a member of the regiment 
which Colonel Wells commanded. Let it stand for 
ages to tell to those who shall live when we are 
forgotten, of the heroes of the day, — and let the 
name heading the list be — George Duncan Wells. 



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